


In Wonderland

by Kay (sincere)



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Stories within Stories, Traumatized Children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 14:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3071684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sincere/pseuds/Kay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes she thinks she will go mad with all the things that she hates about her life, but it helps that now she has a friend near her own age and a few useful escapes that she can indulge in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Wonderland

Contains tiny miserable children being cute together. They probably will both relate to this book. Written for the [](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/)**fic_promptly** prompt, "Lenalee+/Kanda: she read him books when they were children".

 

**.in wonderland.**  
She was running out of escapes.

Lenalee had found a number of ways to escape from her own despair in the two years that she'd been with the Order. She'd learned that helping with the dishes was an easy way to numb her mind, distracting herself with menial chores that required little thought or commitment. She'd discovered that worrying about other people's trouble made her forget about her own. Throwing herself into her physical training was another way, and it pleased the interim chief who had recently arrived.

Meditation was a new and welcome addition to her repertoire of escapes. Kanda had taught it to her after he arrived.

He would sit, cross-legged and hands in his lap, his eyes closed while he told her, "You're being distracting and you're not helping yourself. Stop talking. Stop fidgeting. Stop thinking. You have to empty your mind completely." He could not have described it in a more appealing way.

The tricky thing about the meditation was that it only worked when she was with him, because without his stabilizing presence to model herself after she just found herself drowning in her own inner nightmares, which was the opposite of what she wanted.

But the pressure was building inside her and she couldn't find an escape. She lived in a perpetual state of avoidance, but even without acknowledgment, the hatred and the resentment and the fear built up no matter how hard she tried to pretend that everything was all right.

That was why Lenalee threw herself to her feet, startling the older boy. "Let's not meditate," she said firmly.

"No one asked you to come here," he said flatly. "And I don't need your permission to stay."

"You do need my cooperation, though," Lenalee said, folding her arms over her chest. "If I decide to practice in here, you won't have much luck with your meditation, now will you?"

Kanda directed a glower at her, but Lenalee refused to let him intimidate her. "What do you want?" he demanded, as if she held his meditation time hostage for her wicked ends.

"We should do something -- together." Lenalee looked around hopefully, seeking out something.

"I thought we were _meditating_ together."

The room was painfully spare, prepared for this specific need with the expectation that Kanda would tune out his surroundings and therefore not require much in the way of entertainment or even decoration. There was a single plant against the window, and a small stack of slender books on the shelf.

"I could read to you!" Lenalee said, brightening.

"I know how to _read_!"

"I didn't say you didn't! But it's nice sometimes to have someone else read to you -- it's comforting."

Kanda's scowl deepened, as if he objected to the idea that he might need comforting. "What's wrong with you?" he asked bluntly.

That was a rude question, so she kicked him in the leg, and his glare slid away as he rubbed his thigh. Lenalee told him, "I think it would be nice. We did what you wanted lots of times. I learned how to meditate, right? Maybe we could try doing something I want." She clasped her hands hopefully in front of her. "Just this once! If you don't like it at all, I won't ask you to do it again."

He was silent for a few beats, weighing the indignity of that against the benefits of shutting her up, most likely. Then he said, "I just have to sit here?"

"Yes! You don't have to do anything but listen." Lenalee bounded over to the bookshelf, leaning in to look over the titles and sweeping back her hair. Most of them were the sort of dry and arcane texts that had most likely been placed here because no one wanted to read them, but one of them was an embossed book that read, _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_.

"Have you ever read this?" she asked, holding it up for him. "It's a very odd story, but it's very popular, I hear. The head nurse gave it to me to read while I was in the infirmary."

Kanda shook his head, muted. He volunteered nothing about his reading habits or preferences, and Lenalee was too accustomed to his recalcitrance to ask. She crossed the room again to sit next to him, folding her legs properly and arranging her skirt around her so that she could read in comfort. She'd never read to anyone before, but she was determined to do her best to make it something they could both enjoy.

She began, "Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do..." She took great care with her voice, letting it rise and fall to read the words in an engaging way that would keep Kanda's attention from drifting. "Once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it. 'And what is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversations?'"

She lost herself in the rhythm of the words and the adventures of a little girl in a strange and unwelcoming place, and felt Kanda's gaze and knew that he was with her. In experiencing the story herself and sharing it with someone else, she forgot all about her own troubles.

After her voice had grown tired, she reluctantly closed the book and looked up, taking in the serene, still room, a haven in the chaotic Black Order HQ, which in its own way could be quite familiar and welcoming.

Kanda said, "Are you done? Can I go back to what I was doing?"

"Of course you can," she said, feeling a little bit regretful now that she had forced him away from his meditation for her own selfish ends. "Thank you for listening. We don't have to do it again if you didn't like it."

He paused and then said, "You can keep doing it if you want."

Lenalee smiled at him tentatively, and Kanda looked away, scowling at no one in particular.


End file.
